


Survivors

by Sera_Clay



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:07:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 12,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4725371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sera_Clay/pseuds/Sera_Clay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzington, angst, romance. Uneven chapter lengths.<br/>Once again, disclaimed as to ownership and profit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stopping

Elizabeth Keen looks out the window of the moving pickup truck at the sunrise as Raymond Reddington lays his head on her shoulder and begins to snore softly. Dressed in coveralls and orange hardhats, they are barreling down a narrow Arizona highway in the backseat of a pickup truck, ostensibly part of a road crew sent to repair some guard rail damage from an accident the previous night.

"Stop for coffee?" asks the driver, meeting her eyes in the rear view mirror. Liz scans the scene before her - a truck stop, a tired-looking two story motel, and the usual generic fast food restaurants. An ordinary roadside exit.

"Yes. Thanks."

They can check into the hotel, catch a few hours sleep, and their next ride should be waiting around noon. Twelve hour shifts in each vehicle have turned to ten hours, then to six, as the pursuit intensifies.

She gives Red a little nudge.

"Wake up, we're stopping."

His eyelashes flutter, thick and pale against his wan cheeks. The bags beneath his eyes are dark as bruises, and his mouth turns down briefly before his face comes alive.

"Good, Lizzie." He straightens in his seat and leans slightly forward. Liz frowns as he winces, then sets his jaw without speaking.

The last three weeks are a blur of travel. Along the way, Red has managed to strain his back, although his calm has remained for the most part unimpaired. Physically well, Liz has gone on several crying jags, in the dubious privacy of the shower.

But their accommodations are becoming ever more seedy, here in the hinterlands where Red's network runs thin.

There are too many different players in pursuit of them now. 

The FBI, the Cabal, the usual bounty hunters. But also other shadowy figures, both criminal and law enforcement. Red's people are still researching them, identifying the new threats as they emerge.

"Here we are, then." The driver pulls into the parking lot of the motel, and Liz and Red both hop out of the far side, shielded from the security cameras. They stand waiting as the driver enters the motel and reserves a room with two doubles, then returns and tosses them the keys.

Upstairs, at the back.

"You'll have your own car by noon," he tells them, his face almost unrecognizable beneath his hard hat and large, dark sunglasses. "Leave everything in the room and the key under the mat."

"Luggage?" asks Red.

The man shakes his head.

"Forest fire," he responds somewhat cryptically. 

Red shrugs.

"Thank you," he says, reaching out to shake the man's hand. Liz doesn't move. She's learned from experience that Red's contacts don't want to look at or touch her. Just him.

She's nobody.

When Red lets them into the small, blandly decorated room, she steps at once to the air conditioner and turns down the temperature.

"Take the first shower," she tells Red, who is standing at the foot of the bed closest to the door, looking weary and drained. Wearing coveralls over their dirty clothing from the previous two days has made for a hot and uncomfortable night sitting upright in the truck. "Should I risk buying us something clean to wear at the truck stop?"

Red shakes his head. "No, we can rinse things out here in the sink."

Liz makes a face, but doesn't argue as Red disappears into the bathroom, shutting but not locking the door. They've done this before, and she's learned to select blends that don't require ironing when she's given a choice of clothing.

Red, however, is beginning to look increasingly disreputable in the absence of his usual suitcases and hatbox. They were almost captured two nights ago, when a woman overdosed in the room beside theirs and set their motel on fire. He's unshaven and hatless, both of which tend to upset him.

She averts her eyes as he emerges, still damp, from the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

"Your turn," he says in a short tone.

They have developed certain routines to respect each other's privacy when in tight quarters like this. So far, they haven't been forced to share a bed, just a room.

When she finishes her shower, she's knows he'll be lying on his side in the bed closest to the door, his face turned away. They sleep unclothed, allowing their underthings to dry as they sleep. Weapons on the nightstand between them. 

They pretend there's a wall between them. Red has terrible nightmares, which he refuses to discuss. Liz is pretty sure that she's woken him as well.

Liz shuts herself in the bathroom and undresses, hanging her coverall on the hook on the back of the door with Red's, then setting her underwear and blouse to soak in the sink. Her black slacks are fine, just wrinkled, so she slings them over Red's dress slacks and vest on the towel bar, then drapes her jacket over his on the flimsy metal hanger he extracted from the closet.

The shower feels wonderful. 

Once she's clean, she towels her hair dry, then rinses out her things and hangs them next to Red's T-shirt and boxers on the shower pole. Then she tugs open the small window, allowing a blast of hot morning air into the room. Hopefully everything will be dry by the time they dress again. Red's wet dress shirt looks wrinkled already, despite the care with which he's arranged it on another wire hanger. 

They need to go to ground soon and allow Dembe to dispatch some fresh clothing to them. Are they ever going to stop long enough for her to catch her breath?


	2. Just For One Night

Red glances over at Liz, asleep on the passenger side of their late model compact, emblazoned with rental company stickers. They are supposed to be honeymooners, a weak disguise given the state of their clothing and their lack of luggage. Perhaps a romantic elopement gone wrong?

He told her they would drive in shifts, every two hours, but once she fell asleep, her long lashes dark against her pale cheeks, he couldn't bring himself to wake her. Liz has abandoned most of her make-up by now, but her insistence on at least using mascara is oddly touching.

He remembers his first months on the run, more than two decades earlier. With him, it had been the cologne his daughter gave him for his birthday. Unwashed and unshaven, he still slapped it on his neck every day until the bottle ran dry.

Red cracks his window and takes a long sniff of the pine forest surrounding them. Skirting the reservation, they are winding their way towards a cabin in the mountains. 

A cabin with a hot tub, and a view of the mountains, surrounded by wilderness and beautiful if steep hiking trails. He can safely leave Liz there for a few days, reconnect with Susie in Vegas.

He needs a new hat, damnit.

He pulls over at a long row of battered mailboxes, mostly unlabeled. The combination lock holding the chain across the gravel road to the land where the cabin is located opens stiffly, and Red locks it carefully behind them. More than 20 miles of poor roads, skirting property lines and crossed by branching fire roads, lie between them and the safe house.

Liz will be furious when she learns he plans to leave her.

But he desperately needs a few days away from her. Three weeks of constant contact with the woman he loves have worn his nerves paper-thin. She's grieving for the life she abandoned; he's heard her weeping more than once. And the enforced intimacy of their headlong flight has stripped away his usual armor, humbled him.

His only defense has been to pretend he doesn't care. Because after all, anything is bearable. He's survived jails, prisons, unspeakable captivity in Nairobi. He can survive one more night close to her, but not touching. Her eyes sliding over his bare chest with indifference, her tiny blue cotton boy shorts drying in the bathroom, the little whimpering sounds she makes when the nightmares begin.

It's been years since he paid for female companionship, but he's considering it now. He has the contacts he needs in Vegas to ensure both professionalism and discretion. Not just because frustration is no longer the near-constant roar in the background he's learned to tolerate, but also includes increasingly random spikes that pierce him at the turn of her head, glimpses of her bare body beneath thin motel sheets. 

The sound of her showering as he lies curled in on himself in bed.

He needs to feel like a man again. Liz follows his instructions and guidance, but her eyes are dull and weary when they rest on him. She relies on him, she trusts him, but she stopped asking him to tell her stories after the first day. 

All she wants from him is safety. A dependable protector. He could be anyone.

"Are we there?"

Liz raises her head and looks around, her gaze moving from his face to the pine forest surrounding them, then back.

"A few more miles."

"We didn't stop for food." 

He can hear the question she didn't ask. More than one night they've gone to bed hungry.

"The cabin will be stocked."

He just wishes his people had purchased the supplies, rather than the cabin's owner, who rented it out for their 'honeymoon'. His back needs prescription muscle relaxants. And he'd love a drug, any drug, that would knock him out and take away his constant awareness of Liz.

Just for one night.


	3. Faster

"Damn." 

The word escapes before Liz can call it back, as the rental car jerks to the side, and slides to a tilting stop just short of a stump at the edge of the gravel road.

Flat tire.

With the cabin finally visible ahead, no more than a quarter mile up the road above them.

Red clutches the wheel, looking exhausted. She can tells he's gritting his teeth as his jaw moves, his lips twitching unhappily.

"I can change a tire, Red."

His back is far too sore for him to change it alone. She gets out of the car without waiting for a response, and pops the trunk to dig out the spare, the wrench, and the jack.

"Wait. Let me help."

Red starts to squat beside the deflated left front tire, and then suddenly reaches for his back, listing to one side with a grunt of pain.

"Red. I can do this."

Liz motions him away, then turns her back on him and makes short, efficient work of changing the tire.

"See? Faster than roadside assistance."

Liz stands and stretches, then gives Red another covert glance. After watching her change the tire, he's standing with his back turned to her now, and from the angle of his head, the spasms are truly painful.

Her hands are filthy. She can't wait for a shower.

"Go on ahead, Lizzie," Red says unexpectedly. "I'll walk. Stretch my legs."

He starts slowly up towards the cabin without waiting for her response, setting one foot carefully in front of the other in the uneven rock at the side of the gravel road.

His bare head is bowed, pine tree shadows turning the road and the low roof of the cabin ahead dark as the shadows of evening gather.

Liz watches him for a long moment, then gets behind the wheel and inches the car up the road, passing him with just a wave.

His face is set and his strides are much shorter than usual. He's trying to stretch out his back. She can already tell that the walk isn't working.

Liz parks and sits on a bench on the front porch of the cabin, watching him approach. A familiar figure in his three piece suit and brown sunglasses, more appropriate to a city street than this isolated wilderness. Only his unshaven face, and lack of a hat, betray the exigencies of their flight. She wonders what was in the luggage they didn't receive, and when it will catch up with them.

She's so tired of the black slacks. She wants a bright, colorful dress.


	4. Soak

Liz pulls the padded cover off the deep, round hot tub on the back porch of the cabin and smiles in relief as steam rises into the rapidly cooling evening air.

"Get in and soak, and I'll make dinner," she tells Red. She's already fetched large, clean white towels from the bathroom, and piled them next to a large hurricane candle on the bench against the wall.

"What about you?"

He lingers in the doorway, shifting from one foot to the other.

Liz shakes her head briskly. 

"I'll take a turn later."

It's bad enough that the cabin has only one bed. She's not going to sit naked in a hot tub with him as well.

Red nods, then sets his gun on the table next to the hot tub and begins to unbutton his vest.

Liz looks out at the forest below them, stars already beginning to appear in the eastern sky.

He's always prepared for trouble, for the unexpected. His caution has saved them more than once. Will that same instinct come automatically to her as well, after years on the run?

She turns her back on Red, who is stepping cautiously out of his trousers, trying not to bend his back too much, and enters the main room of the cabin.

The logs that support the high roof are peeled but not smoothed, a rustic effect carried into the small kitchen on one side, the appliances hidden behind knotty pine panels.

The bed is huge, a king that looks larger due to the log frame and headboard, loaded with colorful blankets in geometric patterns.

The only seating is a pair of chairs flanking a breakfast table. No phone, no television, not even a radio.

Liz pulls open the refrigerator door and stares, then laughs unhappily.

Twelve bottles of champagne, and a fruit basket. Where is the food?

The freezer contains only ice. And the cabinets are empty, save for a rather impressive selection of single malt Scotch. At least that part of Red's order was fulfilled.

Liz drops ice in two glasses, pours the most expensive of the bottles of Scotch over them, and carries the drinks back out onto the porch.

Submerged to his chin, Red opens his eyes at her approach, and languidly raises a wet arm to take his drink from her.

He closes his eyes at the first sip, almost moaning in pleasure. Liz sips her own drink, watching the beads of sweat on his head tremble as his eyelashes flutter, his jaw tipped up as he savors his Scotch.

She doesn't want to tell him there's no food. That the fruit will perhaps last them a day, after which they'll need to get back on the road.

"You should really try this water, Lizzie," he tells her, laying his head back against the rim of the hot tub and continuing to sip. "Gather ye rosebuds."

He slants his eyes at her, and she shakes her head with a smile.

"I spent a long weekend once on Ile du Levant," he goes on, the corners of his mouth tipping up. "I can assure you, Lizzie, that I can ..."

Whatever he was about to say vanishes at the crack of gunfire from the front of the house.

Liz sets down her glass and drops to hands and knees, then crawls into the house, weapon drawn. She can tell immediately that there's nobody inside - the front door is still bolted, the long, heavy brown curtains flung open from locked, unbroken windows.

Not hunters. That was small arms fire.

She crouches behind the bed, eyes on the door. No sign of movement. What is Red doing? She assumed he would be right behind her. Now she needs to be ready to cover the back door, as well.

Finally she crawls cautiously to one of the front windows and peers outside.

A tall stranger in desert pale fatigues is searching their car, which is now sagging to one side, at least two tires flat.

That must have been the shots. 

What is he looking for? She could break out the window glass and shoot, but there could be more men in hiding. There must be, for him to be standing in the open like that.

Why didn't they hear a vehicle approach?

The man straightens and looks around, his eyes beneath his military buzz cut searching the surrounding forest.

Another shot. Red's gun. She's all too familiar with that sound by now.

The man crouches behind the car, weapon raised. As Liz watches, still trying to decide whether to give away her position, she hears two more shots, and the man tips backward to lie sprawled next to the car in a spreading pool of blood.

Red emerges from the forest, gun raised, wearing nothing but his pants and his suit vest, splotched dark by the water still dripping off him. His feet are bare, and he's bleeding from a variety of scratches on his bare arms and face.

He looks furious, and deadly, and her breath catches abruptly in her throat.

Red scans the front of the cabin, then takes off at a run around the side of the building, out of sight.

"Lizzie."

Far more quickly that she would have imagined, he's at the back door.

"Red." She rises from concealment beside the window, thrusting the curtains aside. "I'm fine - were there only two of them?"

His expression shifts so quickly from savage to mild that she has to choke back a gasp. 

"For now. But there will be more on the way."

Three weeks on the run, in which Red has been so calm, so patient. So ordinary.

Now suddenly he's peeled back that false skin, let the monster rise once more to the surface. Her own monster shifts within her, longing for completion. 

"The food wasn't delivered." Suddenly that seems important.

He grimaces.

"We'll need to stay here tonight. You leave at first light."

"Me?"

Red gestures expressively with his gun, up and down the length of his body.

"I'm not fit for a twenty mile run. I can hold off the next wave, or two. Until you bring back help."

Liz stares at him, trying to imagine leaving him. She just can't.

"Lizzie, it's me they want." Red steps a little closer, tugging at the waist of his sagging dress trousers. "I know one of those men, and thus exactly who sent them. You would be lucky if they just killed you."

What? Why is he looking so stern? She's endured torture before, but she has no information to offer.

The words sink in at last, and she wraps her arms around herself. 

So these are some of Red's shadowy enemies, criminals as opposed to bounty hunters. Women on the battlefield are fair game to them. Hurting her in front of him would offer them a particular thrill.

Liz takes a step towards Red, close enough to see how hard the pulse is beating in his throat. The adrenaline must be wearing off - his face is set tight against the pain in his back.

"No. I'm staying, or we're both going."

He shakes his head decisively.

"There's no cell phone reception here. Not until past the gate. If we stay, we could be captured long before my people realized something was wrong."

Liz looks down at the polished, knotty pine floor, where drops of blood from Red's scratches are glistening near the edge of a hand-tied rag rug. She stares at each drop, trying to collect her thoughts.

"Lizzie?" Red's tone is coaxing. "You need to leave. I'm not willing to risk that ever happening to you."

He's answered the question she hasn't been able to bring herself to ask. Why he's kept her so close these past three weeks. Why they've been in such headlong flight.

The nature of their pursuit.

She can't drag or carry him out with her. Not twenty miles down a gravel road. She'll have to find a way to persuade him.

Secrets. She has so few secrets left. And this one, she never wanted anyone, most especially him, to know. But she can't measure that against his life.

"Red, I can survive that, if necessary." She takes a deep breath. "I already have. Back in college."


	5. Why

Red finds his gaze drawn from her down-turned face to his blood on the floor, again and again.

Her story is not uncommon; a young woman drinking at a party, a larger, stronger young man who managed to get her alone, and found her vain struggles exciting.

"It's why I took martial arts, and learned to shoot." Her dark lashes, thick with mascara, hide her blue eyes. She seems to be counting the blood spots. "Why I studied psychology, even why I ended up in the FBI, I suppose."

He knows exactly what she's feeling now, the shame tugging at the corners of her mouth, the color in her cheeks. Oh yes. He knows that all too well.

She rubs at her scar, still holding her weapon. 

"So if we try to make it out together, and we fail?" Her eyes rise to meet his at last, fierce and unyielding. "I can survive that again. But not leaving you to die, because I'm afraid."

He swallows hard, feeling tears rise in his eyes, the throbbing pain in his back pounding in tune with his racing heart. She's magnificent, his Lizzie. He'd crawl twenty miles to save her pain. And he may need to. 

"Then we'll leave tonight." He pauses, tucking his gun into the back of his sagging pants. "I'll go through their pockets."

"No, let me do that. To spare your back." She gives him a searching look, and he tries and fails to hold still beneath it. She points at the back door. "Get back in the tub. A few more minutes won't make any difference."

Liz attempting to command his obedience is so much preferable to Liz ashamed. He'll let it pass, for now.

"The first one is about twenty yards in, straight out from the left tail light," he tells her. "Look for a fallen pine - I rolled him next to it."

She nods, then turns to the front door. 

The hot tub sounds wonderful. He can wash off the blood from his scratches, give his back another chance to unwind. Enjoy a few more sips of Scotch.

"You're welcome to join me once you're finished," he calls out to her. 

He doesn't expect an affirmative answer, given how modest she's been in their travels so far. But it's the kind of thing he would normally say. They need to get back on that casual footing fast, before he confesses something he would forever regret.

She turns her head, flashes him a brief, unamused smile. Then she's gone.

But at least she smiled.

Red strips on the back porch and sinks into the hot water with a heartfelt sigh of relief. This may be the last chance he has to be comfortable for a very long time.


	6. Strong

Liz looks back over her shoulder at Red hobbling in her wake. She's carrying the fruit basket, water in a champagne bottle, and a green and brown blanket from the bed. Red is carrying a bottle of scotch in each hand, swigging on the open one with some regularity for pain relief.

He's going to have a terrible headache. Assuming they survive.

The full moon overhead is a blessing, picking out the ruts in the narrow gravel road. They stop regularly to listen for any sign of human activity, walking where the gravel in pounded flat to avoid leaving footprints. The pines rub together in the evening breeze, and small animals rustle unseen through the underbrush. She's heard, but not seen, several owls.

"Lizzie."

Red's whisper is deep with pain. She freezes in her tracks. 

Now she can hear it too. The distant growl of an engine.

"ATV."

He's already moving towards the forest, and she follows him, ducking her head to avoid the branches he holds aside.

They crouch a few yards in, then spread out the blanket and drape it over them both. Sufficient camouflage if any light penetrates into the forest.

"I need to sit."

Red collapses heavily to the forest floor, still holding up his end of the blanket. 

"I could use a rest, too."

Liz follows suit, folding herself down to sit cross-legged as the sound of the engine grows louder. Red has his weapon out, and she takes a quick swig of water before reaching into her holster as well.

They've agreed that if a vehicle stops, they'll go on the offensive. After more than two hours of walking, Red is hunched over against the pain in his back. They need transportation.

The engine sound gets louder. Liz finds herself closing her eyes like a child as not one, but two ATVs roar past on the road, heading for the cabin. If I can't see them, they won't see me.

"One rider each," whispers Red. "Looking for our friends."

Liz nods, then takes another drink of water. She dragged the body of the man who died beside their disabled car into the woods, then threw handfuls of clean gravel over the blood stain. Not enough to conceal what happened from careful inspection in daylight, but hopefully misleading at night.

So much for the faint hope they would find a parked vehicle waiting along the road. She hadn't found keys in either of the dead mens' pockets.

She can hear and smell, rather than see, Red taking another swig of the Scotch.

"Should we wait for them to come back before we start walking again?" she whispers back.

"No, it will take them a while to figure out what happened," he whispers. Not adding what she's positive he's thinking; that if they had waited in ambush at the cabin, they might have captured those ATVs.

Choices. Life always comes down to choices.

Liz reaches out for Red's shoulder, finds her hand sliding briefly over the short fuzz of his hair as he leans his head closer.

Soft. His hair is soft, his smooth scalp beneath it even softer.

"Are you sure you don't want to go on ahead?" he whispers. His breath is thickly alcoholic, his voice so sad.

She's going to need to be strong for them both.

"Red, I wouldn't last a day on the run without you. So get up, and let's get going."

She rises, gathers her burdens, then tucks the folded blanket under her left arm to extend her right hand to him, leaning back in anticipation.

"Up on your feet," she commands him, and as he struggles to stand with her assistance, rising out of the deep shadows of the forest, a slanting line of moonlight illuminates him for just a second.

His eyes and mouth are open, an expression of pure adoration on his upturned face.

Liz almost gasps.

"You go ahead," he says in a rough voice, nothing but weariness in his voice. "I'll follow."

She turns her back and pushes through the branches, begins plodding up the side of the road once again. Keeping her steps as short and slow as she dares. Not willing to let him fall very far behind.


	7. Night

It's a nightmare of a night.

Red slows his drinking, trying to pace himself as he follows Liz in a haze of pain and exhaustion. Concentrating on the uneven gravel beneath his feet, faintly paler than the forest beyond in the shifting moonlight, he ignores the cold and the gathering clouds.

The ATVs haven't returned yet, although he's heard them in the distance. Probably exploring some of the side roads he and Liz have ignored. He spares a thought to hope that no innocent parties have been killed yet. Some of the roads end in empty clearings, or locked, deserted cottages. But not all of them.

"Do you want to sleep for a while, and go on tomorrow?"

Red lurches to a stop. It's somewhere in the early hours of the morning, but he doesn't want to focus closely enough to figure out exactly what time it is.

"No, Lizzie, we need to hide during the daylight hours. We can sleep then."

She clears her throat. He expects her to make some comment about the snail-like pace he's holding them to, his back racked with spasms.

"I'm good for a few more hours, sure."

He expects to hear her footsteps, flinches when she touches his arm.

"Would you like an apple? We never had dinner."

Red coughs to clear the emotion in his throat at the concern in her voice.

"Ah, a woman offering a man an apple. Such an old story."

Too late he remembers the context of that story. 

Betrayal. Exile. Sex.

To his surprise, she just laughs, a rich throaty sound he's only heard a few times before.

"If this is the Garden, then I'm ready to leave."

He laughs with her, relieved beyond measure, and reaches out for the fruit.

It's a very large apple, thin-skinned and sweet. He can't see the color in the moonlight.

Red starts walking, listens as she follows behind him, crunching on her own apple. He can smell the tang of it in the night breeze, redolent of orchards and tended fields, not the wild piny hills through which they are so laboriously trekking.

"Do you want any water?"

He shakes his head, munching on another refreshing bite. The Scotch will do. She can keep the water for herself.

"I'll save your half for later, then."

Her voice is the most assured he's heard her in the last three weeks. Adversity brings out certain characteristics. He adores the way Liz responds to stress - with commands, and power, and decisive action. She's growing more assertive with him, the longer they spend together.

If only that could draw them closer, rather than push them further apart. He's generally at the top of his game with feisty women. Although his wretchedly sore back precludes more than just the thought.

Red has just begun to inwardly pride himself on picking up the pace when the rain begins.


	8. Rain

Following in his footsteps, Liz slows a little further once she realizes Red has no intention of stopping to seek shelter from the rain. Her light jacket, blouse and slacks are sopping wet beneath the equally wet blanket around her shoulders, but he's better protected in his long sleeved shirt and three piece wool suit.

He's also approaching a drunken state that probably precludes him feeling the cold.

She pauses and stares ahead at him, staggering in a bent position down the gravel road with alarming intensity, like a loaded freight train on a downhill slope.

He's frightened. 

It bursts in on her as she begins walking again, staying a few paces back. As if too great a proximity will impede her thoughts.

Red will drive himself with inhuman endurance if he thinks that by doing so, he will somehow protect her.

He ran, he actually ran at full speed, to meet and vanquish their attackers back at the cabin. The bloody scratches he sustained in the forest are a testament to how recklessly he flung himself into the undergrowth to defend her.

Come to think of it, she's never seen him run, anymore than she's seen him drive, until after she shot Connelly.

"So we can stop around dawn?" she asks him, taking a carefully measured sip of water. It feels ridiculous, hoarding their drinking water as the heavens open above them, but the rainwater running in the gullies to either side of the road is shallow and filthy.

"Yes. We need to get far enough off the road that we can't be seen. Perhaps over a hill," Red replies tersely.

Liz looks around at the darkness of the forest. There are clearly hills everywhere, but not enough light to make a wise choice yet.

His shoulders are slumping as he continues taking one step after another, leaning forward with the liquor bottles in each hand swinging forward and back with every step. It's been awhile since she's seen him take a drink.

"I wish we had some music," she tells him, raising her voice so it can heard above the increasing patter of the rain. She has to step carefully now, the road is turning dark and she needs to avoid leaving footprints. "When Sam took me hiking, when I was a little girl, we used to sing."

"I have no voice. I've even taken lessons," Red responds without turning his head. "But feel free to sing as much as you'd like, Lizzie."

Liz never sings around anyone. Not even Tom, when they were married. She opens her mouth, starts with the old songs Sam loved. Crooning so quietly that Red drops back to walk at her side so he can listen.

The rain running down his face resembles tears. She stores away his singularly sweet smile in her memory as she transitions to slow, romantic ballads.

They walk and walk for hours, and somewhere along the way she runs out of songs, and he begins reciting poetry to her, Yeats and Keats and Baudelaire as well, his voice lilting in French, no longer so weary.

In the most secret depths of her heart, she imagines all the poems about love are truly meant for her ears.


	9. Beneath A Pine

They've heard ATVs coming twice before, managed to scramble into the forest and hide before they passed.

Six of them so far, with more armed men in khakis.

The third time, near dawn, Red motions Liz off the trail with a weak lift of his arm.

He's beyond weary.

They step carefully on rocks and sticks and patches of foliage to avoid leaving tracks in the wet earth where they exit the road.

Red leads the way, straight in, until they crest a low hill and find themselves on the other side, the sound abruptly muffled.

He motions her to sit beneath a pine that has fallen against one of its neighbors, then winces as he lowers himself to sit by her side, their shoulders almost touching. Not complete shelter from the intermittent rain, but better than nothing.

They are soaked to the skin, in any case, the weight of the water dragging at them. At least he's warm in his wool suit. He's not sure about Liz, despite the blanket enfolding her.

"Here," she whispers, unwrapping the blanket and laying it over his shoulders as well, then tugging it up over both their heads.

The unexpected comfort on the miserably cold dome of his head almost unmans him. The blanket is warm from her body; it smells like her perfume.

He'd have given her his jacket hours ago, but if his back gets any colder or stiffer, he's not sure he'll be able to keep going.

Liz leans her wet head against his shoulder with a sigh.

"I'm too tired to eat," she whispers. 

Red reaches into the fruit basket and extracts an orange. He peels it slowly, his chilled fingers slipping on the thick rind again and again.

"Here," he says, feeding one segment after another to her. 

She smiles sleepily at the last bite, and he longs to put his arm around her and hold her. But instead he starts peeling another orange for himself.

They need fuel for their chilled, tired muscles.

"Not much of a honeymoon," Liz murmurs.

"Oranges and Scotch and thou," he responds softly. "What's not to like?"

Her eyes flick over at him. 

Red grits his teeth.

Tone. He's got to watch his tone.

"Go ahead and sleep, Lizzie," he whispers, listening as the sound of the ATVs finally passes, heading back towards the road. Just two of them this time. "I'll take the first watch."

Liz unexpectedly lays her hand on his thigh. 

"Can I put my head down?" she asks him.

In answer, Red turns slightly to lean his back against the trunk of the upright tree. Allowing her to curl her head into his lap, the blanket draping over her like a tent.

She's asleep almost immediately.

Red leans back against the tree, grateful for even the slight cushion of the blanket between his head and the bark.

He's cold and wet, in terrible pain from his back, and his feet feel swollen and numb. The acid from the fruit is exacerbating the clenching in his gut from too much Scotch, and the scratches on his arms and face sting as if fresh, rubbed raw with movement.

He'll remember this moment forever - the warmth of her head in his lap, one hand curled confidingly over his kneecap.

Very lightly, Red strokes her wet hair back from her face as he watches the sun begin to rise.


	10. Two Hours

Squinting against the twilight, Liz stares at the chain at the end of the road in disbelief.

Two hours. They spent an entire day dozing in shifts, huddled under the blanket, when they were only two hours from the main road.

Still early evening, she can hear cars passing occasionally on the road past the turn-off.

She looks back at Red, who is stumping along a few feet behind her with his head down. His hands are empty, but she's still carrying the second, unopened bottle of Scotch.

At least the ATVs have all departed. The chain across the road is back in place.

"What's the plan now, Red?" she asks him. He must have a plan. He always does.

He shrugs, then pulls a cell phone from his pocket.

"We have service," he remarks, in a low, hoarse tone. He seems to have acquired a cold. She's heard, but not commented on, several subdued sneezes.

Liz puts her hands on her hips as he just stands there, staring at the phone in his hand.

"A helicopter would be nice, about now," she comments, trying to keep her voice light. Her clothing is dry, but her hair is a tangled mess, and Red looks completely bedraggled.

He shakes his head, chewing on the inside of his unshaven cheek. His beard is coming in silver, sharpening the line of his jaw.

She's never seen him so at a loss. She's always thought of heartache as a foolish metaphor, but her chest is suddenly sore with wanting to embrace Red, and wipe the misery off his face.

"Ok, give me that."

Liz reaches for the phone.

Red hands it over with a grimace.

"You have a credit card we can use, right?" she asks him, dialing from memory.

He presses his wallet into her outstretched hand.

"Any of them except David Morse," he responds. "Who are you calling, Lizzie?"

She speaks confidently into the phone.

"I need to rent a car. You can pick me up, can't you?"


	11. Susie

Red sits in the back seat of the late model sedan with his eyes closed, listening to Liz spin her story to the pimple-faced, crew-cut young employee in his ill-fitting green blazer. He drives slowly and conservatively, exclaiming in amazement at her story of an elopement, and an argument, and a car wreck. Supposedly, the tow truck has already departed with Red's Cadillac.

While they waited in the trees near the main road, weapons out and ready, Liz combed her hair, re-applied her mascara with a heavy hand, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse.

She looks younger, and her tale of the older man with money, who drank too much and wrecked his car on the way to Vegas, told in a contemptuous tone, is clearly appealing to the young man's protective instincts.

Red doesn't mind being the villain. In fact, he's secretly savoring the horror in her voice when the employee, upon pulling over, asked if Red was her father.

"No! Of course not!"

Within an hour they're on the road in the largest and most expensive vehicle available, a loaded SUV with four wheel drive and satellite radio, Liz at the wheel.

Red leans back on the passenger side, enjoying the heated seat.

"Get some sleep," Liz tells him, not bothering to glance over, her eyes fixed on the road. "I can get us to Las Vegas. I assume you have contacts there?"

"Yes, Lizzie," he reassures her, trying and failing to imagine any way he could convince her to wait for him to make contact with Susie alone. He can call ahead to make certain arrangements.

Then they'll need to abandon the car and take a taxi to her place. Red doesn't like the idea of Liz visiting that type of business, even in his company. At least it won't be at night.

But the neon sign is already illuminated when the taxi drops them at the entry of the narrow alley, just a few blocks from the strip.

"Really?" she asks him, trailing behind as he limps towards the door, then pushes the buzzer. "A whorehouse?"

So she knows where they are, despite the pink neon sign advertising massage.

"I'm here to see Susie," he says, raising his face to meet the impersonal lens of the security camera. "Tell her it's Ray."


	12. Another World

His clothing is damp and filthy and his face is scratched, but even without his hat, there's such an arrogance to the lift of his chin that she can almost see the shadow of that missing fedora. 

"Here we go."

Red puts his arm around her and ushers her into a narrow room, where they are confronted by a second, locked metal door. There are chairs here, more security cameras, and a freestanding ATM in the corner, screen glowing blue. The tiled floor is damp, as if if it was recently mopped.

"Lovely," she comments.

The second door opens, and they step into another world. 

A petite older woman steps forward, chattering in Chinese, and takes Red's scratched, unshaven face between her hands, pulling it down to kiss him on the lips. He responds in the same language, bending stiffly, and the woman pauses after the kiss and stares at him with a frown.

Red raises his eyebrows and shrugs wearily at her, and she pulls one hand away from his face as if to slap him, and speaks a few more words in Chinese.

Then she steps back and turns her attention to Liz, putting out her small, soft hand in greeting. Her nails are cut short, and she's not wearing any rings.

"My name is Susie," she tells Liz, her dark eyes bright and curious. She's older than she looked at first glimpse, a network of fine lines at the corners of her eyes fanning out as she smiles at Liz.

"So nice to meet you. Everything is prepared."

They pass a reception desk and enter a long, tiled hall lined with closed doors set rather close together. Each one is marked with a number.

"This is your room. Ray will be right next door. You can use the shower down at the end of the hall."

Susie points at two doors, marked 4 and 6, and so Liz has no choice but to enter. 

The room is small, and dominated by a sturdy massage table draped in what appear to be fresh linens. Several shopping bags stand waiting on the table, along with a folded white towel and a worn white terrycloth robe. 

Liz peers into the bags. Toiletries, grooming supplies, and a choice of fresh clothing, all in her sizes, right down to the shoes. She owned two of these exact pairs of black shoes, back in DC. There are white rubber shower clogs, as well.

She glances at the low table in the corner, then away. Lotions, tissues, and a container of disinfecting wipes. She doesn't look in the drawer.

Dressed only in the robe and clogs, carrying her towel and the bag with the toiletries, Liz makes her way down the hall.

There are two doors at the end. She pushes open the one on the right.

Plumbing and a table? Her mind instantly presents graphic images of torture, and she has to force herself to calm down.

It's just a table shower.

She tries the other door, and finds a perfectly normal bathroom, with a toilet, a wall mounted sink, and a narrow shower stall, all perfectly ordinary and clean. There's even a small fern in a pot on the edge of the sink.

As the hot shower pours down on her, washing away three days of grime along with her exhaustion, she thinks about Red, and why he brought them here.

This clearly isn't one of his usual safe houses. But he feels safe enough to let her out of his sight.

When she lets herself back into the hall, Liz is unsurprised to hear familiar voices and laughter from the room with the table shower. Red sounds as if he's enjoying himself.

Liz hurries away, realizing she's almost pressing her ear to the door in a futile effort to determine exactly what is going on.

What Red and Susie might be doing is none of her business. She only cares because she doesn't want Red to injure his back further, right?

Since they need to get moving again.

Liz tells herself that, but she doesn't believe her own recriminations.

She wants to be the one helping Red get clean. Tending to his wounds. Assisting him back into his familiar clothing. After everything they've been through together, she's uncomfortable with him being out of her sight.

And how did Susie know to give them separate rooms, instead of one? Suddenly, Liz wishes fervently that she could speak Chinese.


	13. Possessive

Red taps gently on the door marked with a 4, and Liz opens it at once. She's wearing dark leggings and a loose gray tunic, and carrying several shopping bags. Her clean, damp hair is pulled back from her face into a high, severe ponytail.

She inspects him briefly, from the tilt of his fedora to his neatly polished shoes, her gaze not lingering on his new tie or three piece suit. Someday he's going to take her tie shopping with him, and choose something that suits her tastes rather than his own. It's a small, but embarrassingly frequent fantasy.

"These clothes are a little warm," she ventures.

He gives her an approving smile. She's weary, the shadows beneath her eyes imperfectly concealed by her makeup, but she's still trying to think ahead of him.

"We won't be here for long," he responds. 

"We're waiting for you, Ray."

Susie's voice floats down the hall, and Red grins at the sour expression Liz tries to conceal. He ushers her towards a door at the back, that leads through a kitchen to an open door.

Susie and two of her employees are waiting by the door, dressed in white blouses, short skirts, and heels. Their shining black hair is straight and long. They could almost be office workers, save for the slits in those skirts, Red muses, giving their toned legs an appreciative glance.

He motions to Liz to precede him.

The door opens into an alley, where a white stretch limousine is idling, the uniformed driver waiting to open the door.

He's holding a second uniform cap, twin to his own.

"In the front, Miss Lizzie. You will be our bodyguard." Susie takes the hat from the driver and hands it to Liz before entering the backseat. Liz turns her eyes to Red, but he just shrugs.

She looks irritated at the subterfuge by which they will be shuttled out of town, which is unfortunate, but also jealous.

Red settles happily into the back seat with an attentive woman on either side, and Susie sitting opposite him to make conversation. As Susie pours him a drink from the small bar, clearly stocked in advance with his tastes in mind, he considers that moment of jealousy. Liz is becoming increasingly possessive of him, which is so hopeful that it's all he do not to speak to her. To smile at her and reassure her.

Instead, he spreads his arms wide, hooking his elbows over the seat back, and allows the women on either side to wriggle closer to him. Although he can only see the back of her head, dwarfed by the uniform cap, in the seat in front of him, he can tell Liz is quivering with indignation, particularly once he begins to tease and compliment his giggling companions in Chinese.

They have a two hour drive ahead of them, and Red is going to enjoy every minute of it.


	14. Wait

By the time the limousine pulls up in the front of the garishly painted pink building, Liz has gotten her temper firmly under control.

"Wait."

The driver puts out one hand as she reaches for the door handle.

Liz sits and watches through the rear view mirror as Red gives each of the three women a kiss on the cheek, and they exit the back seat. Only Susie bothers to wave at Liz, her dark eyes twinkling. Then the door slams shut. Red raises his glass as their eyes meet in the mirror, then he takes a drink.

Such a flirtatious look. 

Liz drops her eyes, then stares forward as the limousine pulls around the building and a large, attached metal garage.

A helicopter stands waiting on a square cement pad behind the garage.

The driver hops out to hold the door for Red, ignoring Liz entirely. She sets her uniform hat on the driver's seat before exiting.

Hopefully, he'll sit on it and crush it.

Donning his customary brown tinted sunglasses, Red strolls slowly towards the helipad, placing his feet carefully in a way that tells Liz his back is still hurting. She looks around before following him.

"What about our things?"

"There will be more, where we're going," he says, pulling out a pristine white pocket handkerchief and stopping to sneeze. Liz glances over her shoulder as the limousine pulls away, back towards the main road.

"And where is that?" asks Liz, stopping as Red bends forward a little, bracing his hands just above his knees. That sneeze hurt his back. But he doesn't need her sympathy right now.

He needs her to follow his example and ignore his pain, and focus on the future. She knows him well enough by now to gauge whether he will tolerate any expression of concern.

"The Windy City," he tells her at last, continuing towards the waiting helicopter. "One of my favorite English-speaking cities. You'll adore Chicago."


	15. Chicago

Liz doesn't adore Chicago.

The first few hours are so lovely. After being whisked away in a small, private jet with a single pilot, in which both she and Red dozed, they check into an elegantly modern hotel suite, dotted with original art, with a sweeping view of Lake Michigan.

As promised, suitcases containing appropriate clothing, as well as two hat boxes, and carry-on stuffed with a number of expensive purses in various styles, await them in their rooms.

"Why can't we just order room service?" Liz protests, fastening her dangling jet earrings with the air of the large, steel-framed mirror in the foyer of the suite. She loves the feel of the clingy, black velvet dress, but she'd be equally comfortable in the plush new white flannel pajamas she's laid out, waiting, on her king-sized bed. The suite is decorated in white on white, punctuated by glowing color in the sculptures and paintings, so much more to her taste than the antiques Red seems to prefer.

"You'll appreciate these steaks," Red assures her, emerging from his room in elegant evening dress, his head tilted with amusement. He hasn't sneezed once she emerged from her bath, nor has he clutched at his back, clear evidence that he's taken some powerful medications. "And Ricardo keeps an excellent cellar. He once served me a Burgundy ..."

Liz raises one hand as the phone on the entry table begins to ring.

"That will be our cab," she advises him.

After helping her into her evening coat, Red ushers her from the suite with aplomb, winding a long, purple wool scarf around his neck and setting his black fedora low over his eyes.

The cab ride is short, and his anecdotes are long, amusing, and for once, devoid of gratuitous references to other women.

And the food, once they are seated opposite one another in an alcove table, is as fabulous as the people watching.

"Ohhhh," Liz sighs happily, as the fifth movie star of the night crosses the room. The alcove tables have wispy curtains for semi-privacy, but some of the more famous guests are ascending to the second floor, presumably for a private party.

"Enjoying yourself, Lizzie?" Red crooks an eyebrow at her, then lifts his wine glass slightly as if in toast.

This is a perfect evening, so different from the last few weeks as to seem almost surreal. Save for the evidence of the healing scratches on his face, Red seems perfectly recovered from the hardships of the last few days.

"Yes, Red," she smiles back at him, remembering another evening, the way her eyes clung to his mouth, his tongue, as he smoked a cigar with evident relish. She barely knew him then.

Now he's the center of her world, her only security. 

Why didn't he want to dine in the suite with her tonight? Liz wonders to herself, sipping at the admittedly delicious red wine. She's more than ready for some time alone with him, in a comfortable and relaxing setting, rather than in mortal peril. Is this a subtle way of creating distance?

Liz flicks her eyelashes at him experimentally, watches his pupils dilate slightly with secret satisfaction.

As she opens her mouth to speak, the smile slides completely off his face, leaving it weary and sagging, almost ugly.

"No time for dessert," he says tersely. "Time to go."

She wipes her lips on her napkin automatically as Red tosses cash on the table, then tucks her clutch beneath her arm.

"Out the back," he tells her.

"Our coats?" she asks, rising to precede him and noticing as she does so how close behind her he's following, She walks a little faster, entering the long hall that leads to the powder rooms, the walls lined with photographs of celebrities and politicians, posed beside a younger Ricardo.

Is that the Director in one photo? With Alan Fitch beside him?

"This way."

Red guides her through the kitchen, smiling at the employees who look up to watch them pass. At the back door a white-gowned chef steps into their path.

"Paparazzi," says Liz hurriedly, not wanting Red to reach for his gun. "My husband can't know I was here."

She gives the chef an imploring look, and he shrugs, but steps aside.

When they reach the chilly dark of the alley, Red strides off quickly, leaving Liz to follow as best she can on her heels. He doesn't slow for more than three blocks, until once they are swallowed up by a crowd emerging from a brilliantly lit theater. The warmth of the bodies around her is welcome. 

"Red, wait." She clutches at his forearm. "Shouldn't we get a cab back to the hotel?"

He gives a quick shake of his head, gritting his teeth as one hand goes to the side of his hatless head. That little scratch, the one that signals his upset as clearly as the twitch of one eye, the tug at the corner of his mouth that sends his jawline rippling.

"We can't go back."

"Who did you see, Red?" she asks him, still clinging to her grip on his arm as he stiffens, clearly wanting to keep walking as the crowd flows past them.

"Madeline. Madeline Pratt."


	16. Attack or Retreat?

Her hand on his arm, bare to the shoulder in her black velvet dress. Liz is even more poorly dressed for the night's cold than he is in his evening dress. At least he has his hat, an elegant black fedora with a dark band.

"Are you sure she saw us?" Liz asks, giving his arm a little squeeze.

Madeline began to smile when their eyes met. Before she recognized Liz at his side.

No mercy to be expected from that quarter. She'll probably decided to collect the current price on his head personally.

To be fair, Madeline was the one who introduced him to Ricardo - but how could Red have known she would be dining in his restaurant, of all places on the globe, tonight?

"So we need to leave Chicago fast?" Liz asks, apparently taking his silence for assent.

Red bites his lip, trying to think quickly through the formerly pleasant haze of the Burgundy.

Madeline knows many of his contacts here. And some of the ones she knows, know many of the others.

Liz shivers as the crowds disperse, leaving them standing without protection from the icy wind. The patch of sky visible above them seems unnaturally black and starless. All they need now is more rain. 

Red reaches into his pocket for his handkerchief and sneezes into it, barely in time. The painkillers he took for his back will be good for hours yet, but by tomorrow morning he'll be in agony once again.

"Let's get a drink, and talk about it somewhere warm."

As she speaks, Liz slides her hand down his arm, and clasps their hands. Her small fingers are strong and warm.

Red looks over at their clasped hands, then up to her face. She looks calm and resolute. 

He's been on the run for so long, and amassed so many resources, so many safe houses in the process, that their helter-skelter pace over the last few weeks has worn him down. But she's younger, and for all she knows, he's been running at this pace for the last twenty years.

There's only one thing to do. Keep his guard up, and allow her to take the lead. Until he feels ready to do so again.

"What a splendid idea, Lizzie," he says, giving her the best smile he can manage. 

She steers him into the next bar they find, a dark, over-decorated space that purports to be an Irish pub, dropping opposite him into the narrow, green vinyl booth nearest the door. There are a number of well-dressed patrons clustered near the bar, as well as around the pool tables in the back, probably part of the theater crowd. 

"Two Irish coffees," she tells the server. "And we'll need a menu."

Red blinks at his retreating back, automatically scanning the bar for familiar faces. 

"Red?"

When he turns back to look at her, leaning forward across the scarred wooden table between them, Liz looks concerned. She lays her left hand, palm up, on the table in invitation.

They don't hold hands. What is she doing?

Cautiously, Red puts out his right hand, feels her interlace their fingers.

"We need a new plan," she says, leaning back as the server deposits their drinks in tall glass mugs, then sets a laminated menu at the end of the table.

"I'm thinking, Lizzie," he says, taking his mug in his left hand and lifting it to his lips. Overly sweet but strong, the cheap whiskey clearly not Irish, but warming.

"What would you do if you were alone?" she asks him.

Red shrugs.

"Flirt with a beautiful woman, convince her to take me home?"

He means it as a joke, but it's actually been a successful strategy in the past. An overnight stay with a complete stranger is always a good way to throw pursuers off the scent. Thankfully, Liz seems to accept the suggestion as banter.

"Well, this is wrong bar to meet someone for a threesome," she returns, lifting her own drink and sipping with far more appreciation than the mediocre concoction deserves.

"And you would know that, how?" counters Red, giving her hand a little rub with his thumb.

"Wouldn't you like to know," she answers back, giving him a very flirtatious smile.

Yes. Yes, he would.

Red leans forward, absently sipping at his drink. Beginning to relax into the conversation, his heart no longer pounding quite so fast. Hopefully Liz didn't sense his terror at the hatred that briefly disfigured Madeline Pratt's beautiful face.

"We need a warm place to stay tonight, and new clothing, and a quick way out of the city." She sets down her drink, already half gone, and ticks the list off on the fingers of her right hand, still holding his right hand with her left. "So - attack or retreat?"

Her blue eyes are so steady on him, as if she can see past his facade to his fear. Madeline would turn Liz over to his worst enemies without asking for any favors in return.

He shudders inwardly. The only way to get close enough to Madeline to attempt an attack would be for him to pretend to crawl back to her.

He never wants to touch her, or even talk to her, again.

Not after the dehumanizing way he was put on display at the King auction. Never mind that she thought she was doing him a favor. And that the family ledger did in fact contain the information about the sale of his daughter he had surmised it might, so long ago. And her suicide, as well.

Madeline's overture almost got him killed as well, and she is presumably as upset with herself about that as she is about Liz being the one who rescued him. Her upsets are legendary, murderous.

"Red?"

He takes another sip of his drink.

"Retreat. Flee. Live to fight another day," he tells her.


	17. A Challenge?

His expression is so bleak.

She needs to think fast.

"We're not a married couple," she says, turning her wrist slightly without releasing his hand. "No rings."

He nods, just once, his eyes seemingly focused on her mouth. At least he's listening, not drifting back into that strange reverie that twisted his face into that of a world-weary stranger, bitter beyond belief.

"I think we're an adulterous couple, and your wife just spotted us together at the theater. So where would we go?"

Red tilts his head, his mouth quirking up.

"A motel?" he suggests.

"Right. Not home, not somewhere fancy. So, I'm going to call for a cab." She releases his hand, turns her open palm up on the table. "I have a phone in my purse. I just need a credit card."

Red shrugs, then digs out his wallet.

She'll pick the first motel the cabbie suggests. Which turns out to be full, as does the next one, and the next, the neon No Vacancy signs dashing her hopes again and again. At least they are miles from the restaurant by now.

His final suggestion is a series of sagging, gray-shingled cabins, separated by narrow trellises overgrown by dying vines. The taxi driver waits for Liz to register at the front desk and pay in cash, then drives down to the end of the row, Red slumping in the back seat, pretending to nausea.

He waves his thanks for her generous tip before backing out, leaving them on the doorstep beneath the a dim, yellow porch light.

Liz unlocks the door and ushers Red into the musty darkness. She doesn't flip on the lights until the door is closed and locked behind them.

One small room, with a bathroom and a kitchenette. Old maple furniture and a faded pink bedspread, with equally faded, flower patterned curtains in pink and green covering the windows. Shabby but adequate.

After placing his fedora on the low, scratched maple dresser, Red sits down with a deep sigh on the side of the bed closest to the front door and starts to loosen his tie.

"You take the first shower," Liz tells him, watching as he leans forward slightly, as if even the effort involved in raising his chin to remove his tie is jarring his back. "I'll be in the kitchen."

She turns her back on him and sits at the round table, thumbing through the brochure she picked up at the front desk. Cheaply printed, it includes listings for several local bars and restaurants, as well as an advertisement for the cabins, the Menominee Motor Court. Come to think of it, there was a feathered headdress on the sign, as well as on the tag attached to their room key.

She stares at the listings, wondering dully where they will eat breakfast. It's jarring to be back in motion again. The luxury of their hotel suite seems like another world, weeks rather than hours in the past.

A sneeze announces Red's exit from the bathroom.

"Your turn, Lizzie."

Liz listens as he makes his way across the room, the bed groaning a little as he climbs into bed. She stands and stretches before she turns back towards the room.

Red is curled at the edge of the bed, the covers up to his chin. His eyes firmly closed.

Their usual routine. 

She can manage this. Even if there is only one bed.

Liz lets herself into the steamy bathroom, and is partially undressed in preparation for her own shower before her mind fully registers what she's seeing.

Red has rinsed out his clothing and hung it to dry. His boxers are navy silk, draped over the towel bar beside the sink.

They can't have been that dirty. Is this a message? A challenge? Or just an automatic action, after so many similar nights on the run, without their luggage?


	18. Just Another Dream

Closing his eyes against the dim yellow light filtering through a gap in the curtains, Red tries to breathe evenly as Liz shuts off the lights, then slides into bed, smelling faintly of roses from the cheap little pink bar of soap in the bathroom. His gun is on his nightstand, and hers is surely in her clutch on hers.

"Good night, Lizzie," he tells her, feeling the cheap mattress sag as she settles herself on her back. It would be so easy to roll towards her, into the dip in the center of the bed. 

He won't sleep much tonight, between his cold and the pain in his back, resurgent as the pain pills start to wear off. Will he even be able to walk in the morning?

The bed moves again, and Red bites back a protest, gritting his teeth.

"Red?"

He takes a short, careful breath through his nose, trying not to sneeze.

"Yes, Lizzie?" he manages, curling his body a little tighter as she moves once again, the thin sheets sliding unpleasantly against his bare skin.

What is she doing? They normally avoid conversation while in bed.

"Do you need more medicine for your back?"

He had a few pills in a silver vial in the pocket of his overcoat, abandoned back at the restaurant. Nothing non-prescription tablets could begin to replace. Even if he was willing to allow her to venture forth into the night.

"Lizzie, I'd give anything for the pills back at the hotel, but no, I don't need anything tonight."

The bed shifts again, and it's all he can do not to swear.

"Anything, Red?"

There's a rattling sound, pills on plastic, and Red rolls onto his back and opens his eyes to see Liz sitting up in bed, her clutch gaping open on the nightstand.

"I brought them, just in case," she tells him, the sheets barely covering the top half of her body, her bare shoulders leaving him in no doubt as to her state of undress.

Still lying on his back, he takes the bottle from her and opens it, wordlessly, and extracts two pills, then hands the bottle back.

"Do you need water?" she asks him. In the dim room all color has been leached from her skin. Her wide, concerned eyes are dark and mysterious.

She's only a few inches away from him in bed, her hair flowing loose down her back.

Red couldn't swallow the pills right now if someone held a gun on him. He nods, feeling the back of his head rubbing the thin pillowcase, the hard, flat pillow. 

"Be right back."

As if in a dream, he watches her slide naked from bed and pad to the kitchenette, fill a glass from the cabinet at the sink. She comes back into the room, and pauses at the foot of the bed, a pale, dim shape.

"Here."

Red blinks and lifts his head slightly as she walks to his side of the bed and holds out the glass. Her breasts are small and firm, her body softly curved. 

He takes the glass and drinks. Places the pills in his mouth, then drinks again. Liz stands waiting, close enough to touch, watching him.

"More?" she asks, as he finishes the water. 

"No, thank you, Lizzie. That was ... extremely thoughtful."

His voice comes out deeper than he expected, but she just nods, then takes the glass back to the kitchen before returning to her own side of the bed and climbing back in.

They both suffer intermittently from nightmares. Neither of them dares to keep a glass at their bedside.

Red lies very still on his back, waiting for the pain pills to kick in. Liz is also lying on her back again, her shoulder so close he imagines he can feel her warmth. He closes his eyes and deliberately unclenches his jaw.

He wants to feel her warmth, to pull her body against him and hold her. He wants it so badly, has wanted her for so long, that at first, when she rolls onto her side facing him and places one hand on his chest, he thinks it's just a dream.

Just another dream.


	19. Enough

She's touched his chest before, when he was shot, blood everywhere, his eyes wild and his mouth thin with pain.

So she knows the feel of his soft flesh and softer body hair, the smooth texture of his fine-pored skin.

What she doesn't remember is the feel of her own heart, pounding so fast it seems to snatch at her breath.

The way her hand on him feels suddenly filled with heat, not trembling, but electric, as if she can somehow transmit what she's feeling directly into his nervous system.

His eyes stay closed even when she edges her body closer, her touch becoming more daring as he doesn't protest. His breathing just deepens as she explores his body slowly, rising to her knees at his side to use both hands, then bending down to take each of his nipples into her mouth in turn, sucking at them as her hands caress him, gentle yet relentless.

His hips shift at last, closer to her, closer to the center of the bed, and she straddles his thigh, then shifts down the bed, drawing the covers down to expose his body. Kissing her way down his belly as she runs her nails lightly over his hips and down his groin, then away again.

She bends her face so close she knows he can feel the heat of her breath, then waits, her fingernails tracing slow lines up and down his thighs. 

His body begins to shake, almost imperceptibly, and his thighs part slightly, and his fists, lying so still at his sides, turn out, the tendons in his wrists clearly visible.

Liz tastes him with just the tip of her tongue, several darting flicks, then raises her face to see Red tilt his head back, his neck exposed as his jaw tightens, his eyes still squeezed shut.

She opens her mouth and licks him with the flat of her tongue, then sucks him deep into her mouth, glorying in the guttural sounds he makes as his mouth stretches open, his hips tilting to meet her movements.

Beneath the rose scent of the soap, Red tastes so good. He's careful not to choke her, testing but not exceeding her abilities with exquisite sensitivity.

He doesn't last long, his hands never lifting from his sides, never touching her until they unclench to rest lightly on her hair as the last shudders pass through him.

Enough.

So much more than enough.

Liz pulls the covers up before withdrawing to her own side of the bed. It's only after she's curled facing away from Red, who is now snoring rather audibly, that Liz realizes she didn't even attempt to kiss him.


	20. For Now

Red wakes abruptly, well before dawn, to find Liz shaking with sobs on the far side of the bed.

Another nightmare.

He can't just ignore it. Ignore her.

Whatever they are to each other now. Whether last night meant everything, or nothing. 

"Lizzie?"

He rolls to his other side, careful not to jar his back, which is thankfully still muted by the pain pills, and reaches for her.

Instead of resisting, as he expected, she rolls toward him and buries her face against his chest, clinging to him tightly and winding their legs together.

Red sighs and collects her against him, settling carefully onto his back with her all but sprawled atop him, still weeping. 

"Lizzie? Sweetheart? You're safe now."

He hopes this isn't one of violent nightmares. She's broken lamps before, ended up on the floor trying to crawl into the too tight space beneath her bed.

"Red." 

She's calming more quickly than he dared to hope. Red loosens his arms, but she just cuddles against him, her smooth, slim legs sliding against his, twining as if to keep him prisoner.

"Red. Hold me."

She raises her face, wet with tears, as if in anticipation for a kiss, but her eyes are shut tight. Still dreaming.

He sighs again and tucks her head back against his chest.

"Shhh, Lizzie, you're safe," he whispers. He can't believe he actually slept for several hours. 

But that wasn't a dream, after all. 

His nipples are tender, and the inner ache of frustration that has been his unwelcome companion for so long is muted despite the press of her naked body against his own. Muted, but not absent.

He wants to touch her, to explore every inch of her velvety, youthful skin, but she's not awake yet. She didn't seem to miss his touch, last night. She might not welcome it, this morning. Or ever.

He knows all about the impulses that arise for fugitives, from desperation, and fear, and drink.

"Ah, Red."

She shifts against him, presses a kiss to his collarbone, then another into his neck, just below his jaw. Her lips lingering on his wrinkled skin, the pulse beating ever faster as her tongue tastes him, sending a reminiscent thrill along his nerves.

Red traces his fingers lightly up and down her spine, hoping to comfort her without waking her.

Instead, she raises up on one elbow, her open eyes searching his face. She's still wearing traces of her mascara from the previous evening, presumably waterproof, her eyelashes soaked.

Without speaking, holding his gaze, she lifts her hand from his chest and tugs at his wrist.

Removing his hand from her back.

Even though he half-expected it, the rejection is such a painful shock. He swallows hard and blinks, despite everything that betrays, feeling his mouth pull to the side for just an instant.

She can't imagine, after last night, that he doesn't want her. She'll have to survive knowing that he still wants her this morning. Knowing she's hurt him.

Just please, never how much.

Liz tugs his hand to her breast, covers it with her own. Holding his shaking fingers in place.

Then she leans over until her mouth pauses just above his now parted lips. Allowing him to feel the moist warmth of her breath. Waiting, in a deliberate echo of the previous night, for his consent.

"My turn," she whispers, finally, her eyes so wide and intent, her desire unmistakable.

"Yeah," he breathes softly, so filled with wonder and relief that he barely registers her movement until their lips meet, her kisses so tender and earnest that he could almost believe that she's been longing for him just as he has for her.

They need to go back on the run after check-out time at noon, in their evening clothes, with yet another unforgiving enemy, Madeline Pratt, on their trail.

But for now, one of the happiest mornings of his life, Red is going to enjoy the hell out of the Menominee Motor Court's cheap mattress, and the passionate embrace of the woman he loves more than life itself.


End file.
